Having spent the night in those woods that Zekrom had landed them in following the attack on Opelucid, N woke the next morning to a rumbling growl from his friend. Zoroark, also free of her Poké Ball, anxiously limped in circles, raising her ears, and flicking them confusedly. Groggily wiping his face, N leaned up from his sleeping bag beneath that meager tent, and staggered outside, into the cool forest air. "Zekrom…?" he asked in a hoarse voice, ragged and ruined from the day before. He had spent most of it shivering in Zekrom's grasp, sobbing his anxieties away. "What's going on?"
Reshiram… Reshiram is back… Reshiram is going to face Kyurem, Zekrom said disbelievingly. It's headed in Kyurem's direction… I can sense it…
"What?" N yelped excitedly, daring to believe what Zekrom had said. That banished all the exhaustion in his body, and he ran up to Zekrom, grabbing at the pokémon's left arm. "Reshiram is…? Then that means Hil… Oh, Zekrom!" N beamed, jumping up and down like a child on Christmas morning. "See? He's coming! We must go! We have to do this!"
Zoroark stood next to Zekrom and both pokémon stared at him, then dipped their heads. Yes, Zekrom growled, electricity sparking off its head and its tail. Yes, we must. Hero of Ideals, we are at your side! We will meet with the Hero of Truths and together, we will drive back that monster once more! Let us head for Kyurem—we will meet Reshiram and the Hero of Truths there, or they will join us shortly after!
N winced. The real monster is Ghetsis… he thought waywardly, knowing that Zekrom was likely talking about Kyurem. Yet, he didn't want to ruin the moment. He grinned and pumped a fist. "Yes. We must. Let's go!" I can't believe Churchill got Hil to do it… I'm so glad! I don't have to do this alone!
I never wanted to do this alone…
Nate was ungraciously dropped from a few feet in the air following another teleport, supposing that the red tile must have been an indication of that. Now, in a familiarly frigid cavern, he landed awkwardly on his right arm. Grimacing at the flash of pain in his elbow, he scrambled to his feet to apprehensively take in his new surroundings. He only barely had time to acknowledge that it was a rounded-out cave with ice lining the interior, spires of the stuff projecting from the walls like teeth, before he spotted Ghetsis ahead, limping over to a monstrous pokémon whose appearance Nate couldn't have dreamt up.
It looked… broken. Shattered, even. It was leaned so far forward, in a way that looked uncomfortable for a creature with two legs instead of four, and its body was splotched unevenly with blue-gray ice. Bony protrusions jutted from its shoulders, looking like wings had started to take shape there and something had stunted their growth. Its imbalanced head was covered in glacier ice on the left while the right was flat, dull gray skin. It narrowed lifeless, yellow eyes at Nate and roared, a haunting, shrill noise that whipped off the ice in the cavern and raked his eardrums. Nate yelped at the pain and clamped hands over his ears, staring fearfully at the black, metal harness that seemed to further weigh down the beast ahead of him. Is that… the Beast of Black Ice…?
"Welcome, Nathan, to the deepest recesses of the Giant Chasm!" Ghetsis boomed, utterly unfazed by the behemoth's display beside him. He stopped just a few feet away from the monster and leaned on his metal cane, his entire body heaving with the effort to breathe, it seemed, what with his breaths coming in rapid puffs of mist against the brisk air. Still, that horrid grin didn't falter. "Here, Kyurem can use the full extent of its power and easily cover all of Unova in ice!"
"Forget it!" Nate snarled. "I won't let you!"
"Oh?" Ghetsis amusedly chuckled. "Is that so?"
"No! I won't!" With that, he hurled all six of his Poké Balls at the ground… and nothing happened. They just sat there. Breath quickening as blind panic started to set in, eating away at his confident façade, Nate licked his clammy lips and fearfully jerked a gaze between Kyurem and Ghetsis, then back to the Poké Balls on the ground. He lunged for them and tossed them again, and still, nothing happened, nothing at all! "Please!" he begged as he snatched Spacey's Poké Ball from the pile. What are you guys doing? Why aren't you helping me? We—I thought we were in this together! "Please, help me!"
"I'm afraid it's not their fault," Ghetsis coldly interjected at last. He slammed his cane against the rocky floor and Nate cringed at the resonating sound that followed. "My cane emits a signal that prevents the functionality of Poké Balls in my vicinity. You can thank my nephew for that one! Oh, Colress didn't warn you about that, did he?" Ghetsis put on a fake frown and raised his right hand under his cloak, with visible effort, to place it over his heart mockingly. "In his desperation to get rid of me, he failed to remember the very cane he helped develop for me!"
What do I do? What the fuck do I do now? Nate thought wildly, looking around him as if the desolate, icy cavern might offer some sort of explanation. The entrance behind him that led out of it was long and dark, telling him that escape would be difficult… Helplessness was forcing its way into his angrily courageous heart, nesting there, making a home, eating away at his resolve. He was alone… Completely and utterly alone with this horrible man… He started to shake as he looked down the yawning passage out of the cavern. I don't have a choice. I don't have anything to fight him with! I have to get out of here!
Yet, the second he stepped backward, Ghetsis huffed and pointed that cane at him. "I was a fool last time, was too cocky, and let a loose end be. Not this time. I don't know who you are, Nathan, or where you fit into this, so I will remove you from the equation altogether!" He cackled loudly, madly, like a man drunk on a high. "You should be glad! You're the first to witness Kyurem's true power! Kyurem! GLACIATE!"
Although he had booked it for that long, dark tunnel the second Ghetsis raised his cane, his escape was easily thwarted by Kyurem shrieking again, stunning him with the sheer force of the noise. The force of the sound felt like it vibrated the very bones in his legs, seizing them beneath him. Then, the beast waved those half-wings from over its shoulders, and ice took shape in the air around it, a ring of sharp, massive icicles, cleanly tapered to a needle-like tip. With another deafening roar that knocked Nate back to the ground from where he had started to scramble to his feet again, the ring of ice hovered in the air above him, spinning lazily, but each icicle aimed directly for his face. Quaking violently in fear, Nate tried to urge himself to run again, to get out of there, but his knees… his feet… his arms… nothing would listen to him as he stared vacantly at one of those spires of ice. He swallowed hard. He's going to kill me. He's… he's actually, really, truly going to kill me… Then, the ice sped up, rapidly spinning in the air around him.
Then they sped toward his face. Nate clenched his eyes and screamed, covering his head as he fell to his knees, sobbing as he expected… he didn't know what he expected. A horrible, painful, piercing sensation that pinned him to the ground and made him slowly bleed to death? Instant nothingness? Would the burning bite of the extreme cold of Kyurem's ice drain away the pain as he slowly faded? He had never even truly thought about what might come after death… Despite all the times he had found himself wishing his father would perhaps just kill him rather than keep him to use, he had never actually thought about the after. As he swallowed against his tears, he realized that was because he didn't want to die… He didn't want to give up, he didn't want this to be the end… He pondered that for what felt like an eternity but what must have only been milliseconds, his life flashing before his eyes, sobbing harder at the less than pleasant imagery that came forward in his mind's eye, but… the brutalizing death he expected never came. In his panic, he almost didn't hear the voice shouting above the calamity in the icy cavern.
"Zekrom, Fusion Bolt!"
There was a booming crash immediately over his head that further damaged his hearing, searing the ends of his hair, a flash of blue light bright enough to see through his eyelids, and the ice that had guaranteed his death milliseconds earlier shattered to a million glinting fragments, raining over his body harmlessly like snow. Tentatively unraveling his hands from his face, Nate fought for breaths between the sobs that refused to abate, realizing someone had saved him… Someone astride the shoulders of another beastly pokémon, like Kyurem, but… different. It was taller, pure black save for its whirring, turbine-like tail, which sparked and flashed with blue electricity. More than anything, this pokémon seemed almost… regal. The person astride its shoulders leapt off with practiced grace, his long, green hair flowing behind him. As Nate's mind, fractured from the sheer stress of what had just happened, slowly sewed itself back together, he realized that the newcomer had called the pokémon Zekrom… Meaning that there was only one possible explanation for who had saved him.
"So, you came," Ghetsis growled, no longer paying Nate any attention. "…The freak without the human heart, N."
"That's the Hero of Ideals…" Nate breathlessly mumbled to himself, swallowing the bile and lump in his throat. Shakily, he tried to stand, but his legs felt like jelly, and he collapsed to his knees again. Heaving some more shuddery breaths, Nate tried to steady his breathing, deciding that he needed to calm down, to get his head back in the game. He couldn't give in now… He looked over Zekrom and N as N marched ahead of his pokémon, his bony chin raised defiantly as he confronted Ghetsis. No… Nate couldn't give in now… Swallowing hard, he remembered that Hil was supposed to be coming on Reshiram, as well… He paused as he remembered something Hugh had said, that Reshiram had been helping them attack the ship. Nate gaped as he overlooked the cavern in newfound terror. He had been so caught up in the moment, he had failed to recognize the significance of them being in a cave and not on the Frigate!
The ship was a decoy! We were all focusing on the wrong thing! Nate thought in alarm. That's… that's why Hil hasn't gotten here yet… More tears threatened to spill as a scarier thought dawned on him. Does… does Hil even know where we are…? What if he doesn't get here, and… and… Drayden said… the DNA Splicers…
"Zekrom told me that Kyurem was suffering!" N sternly called. It wasn't quite a shout, but he most certainly wasn't using an indoor voice. Taking another, decisive step toward Ghetsis, N growled almost animalistically, "I can't allow selfish humans to make pokémon suffer!"
"Me? Selfish?" Ghetsis gasped. "N…" He shook his head and feigned a sadness in his tone that made his voice crumble and warble. "I did this… all for you."
"You… wh-what?" N faltered, stepping away, that almost noble note in his voice vanishing.
Nate jumped to his feet then. He wasn't sure where he found the strength, but his blood pounded in his ears as he watched the exchange unfold in front of him. The way Ghetsis could change his demeanor in a heartbeat, the almost taunting edge to his tone—"N! He's lying!" Nate snarled, his voice giving out partially. The cold had scraped his vocal cords raw, not to mention how much yelling he had been doing. Desperately trying to force some sound into his words anyway, Nate croaked, "Don't listen to him!" You might be our only hope now! Don't fall for it!
N glanced at Nate worriedly, then turned his attention back to Ghetsis. As if steeling himself, he shook his head vigorously. "N-no… No, you didn't…" N sighed wearily. "I like Unova. I can't allow you to destroy this place… It's what taught me how to live as a human… What taught me the harmony of people and pokémon working together… It's so hard to call you this… but… Father… so many people understand this. Even I, who was groomed to believe otherwise, can see this…" N sounded so pained… Nate gnawed his lower lip anxiously. He recognized the longing in N's tone in the way he regarded his father. "Why can't you, Father?"
It was a learned sadness that came with the realization that his father, this person that was supposed to have cared for him, was a cruel, selfish person, and always would be, layered beneath the delusional desire to believe that such a wicked man didn't mean it, that he wanted to be a better person. Nate's heart bled underneath the currents of fear in his mind, and he gritted his teeth. He knew that feeling and then some… He had lost count of the times he had begged and pleaded with his own father, trying to appeal to a sense of humanity that just wasn't there, just for… just for it to never be of avail. It's no use, N, he wanted to cry out, though it felt like something had stolen his breath, and between that and his scored throat, he felt mute. There's no convincing someone like that not to hurt you… You can beg and beg and beg… Nate wiped his face, hating the fucking tears that kept coming every now and then. Why did his emotions have to get so scrambled during all this? He was supposed to be there to help fight! He was the trainer selected by the Swords of Justice! Even if… he couldn't actually summon them at the moment, for whatever reason… But it won't make him stop… It never makes people like them stop, N…
"That… was a very moving expression, N," Ghetsis softly said. Hanging his head, he leaned harshly on the cane and gagged and spluttered, coughing fitfully for at least thirty solid seconds. Regaining his composure, Ghetsis' left arm shook from the effort of balancing all his weight on that thin, metal cane. He looked up at N slowly. "N… may I have a hug?"
Zekrom's tail flared brightly with electricity and it growled. Nate stomped a foot, too, finally finding his words as he shook his head vigorously. "N, no! He's trying to trick you!" Why can't you see that? Why are you falling for this? Nate's feet itched with the urge to run over and drag N away from Ghetsis, but fear and physical exhaustion kept him rooted in place. Zekrom might have saved him once, but… he wasn't sure if he could guarantee it happening again… and he most certainly wouldn't have been of any help if Kyurem killed him. He hated feeling this small, this helpless… He was supposed to be over there, helping, being the hope that everyone needed! It felt like watching one of those horrible, violent TV shows that he despised!
Kyurem hissed back at Zekrom, keeping the pokémon in line, while N shuffled uneasily toward his father. He awkwardly opened his arms and embraced Ghetsis in a hug. "Father… I don't want to hurt you… I don't want to hurt anyone… please… please stop this… It doesn't have to be this way…" N begged.
"N!" Nate screamed, "Stop!"
"I missed you, N," Ghetsis whispered so quietly, Nate almost didn't catch it.
"I… I m-missed you, too, Father… Please… I don't want you or anyone else to suffer… Let Kyurem go, stop this…"
Nate darted closer to Zekrom, clinging to the pokémon for protection, and cupped hands over his mouth as he howled, "N, stop! Please, listen to me!"
All in one horrible moment, Nate was proven right. Ghetsis suddenly snatched N by a fistful of his hair in his right hand, causing N to yelp in pain and scrabble at his father's grip. Zekrom roared furiously and lunged at Ghetsis, but the old man held N up like a meat shield, forcing Zekrom to stop dead in its tracks. Raising that steel cane, Ghetsis abruptly slammed it to the ground. "Kyurem! Absorb Zekrom!"
"Wh-what are you doing?" N squeaked against Ghetsis' hold, kicking his feet wildly to try to get free. None of his blows seemed to faze Ghetsis at all. "F-Father, stop!" Ghetsis laughed at him, laughed, and laughed, and N's struggles only strengthened… Even though they were never enough to force Ghetsis to let go. Nate froze in terror, cringing at every loud word. "It's an ugly formula!" N finally howled. "Whatever you're doing, it won't work! Let me GO!"
"I AM NOT YOUR FATHER!" Ghetsis screamed, raising that cane again and aligning it with N's face, the blunt end perilously close to N's eyes. "You share my blood, but you are NO SON OF MINE!"
N fell limp in his grasp, still partially suspended in the air by his hair, the toes of his tan shoes only barely touching the ground. "I share… you… what…?" he asked in a ghost of a whisper, mumbling words that didn't seem to make sense together brokenly in the wake of what Ghetsis had said. "I… you found… The castle…" Suddenly, his fighting spirit returned with vengeance, and he kicked his feet wildly, landing a few blows on Ghetsis' stomach. Not that Ghetsis reacted other than to laugh maniacally. "Where is Reshiram and Hil?" N desperately cried out.
Yeah, that's a good question! Nate thought distractedly as he went to run over to assist, but he was soon forced to retreat as he watched Kyurem start to move. Purple light flashed around the room, ricocheting off the crystalline ice, and Nate could only watch in abject horror as Kyurem lumbered toward Zekrom, spiraling, violet lights projecting from the wing-like structures on its back. Zekrom fired off a few massive, blue orbs of energy at the creature, shooting N frightened looks, but Kyurem withstood the attacks as if they were nothing, the electricity arcing off its glaciated body. Those ethereal chains soon wrapped around Zekrom's wings, then its arms, then its feet. In one terrible moment, Zekrom crashed forward like a broken statue, and Kyurem reeled it in with the plasmatic, purple chains as if it were a Magikarp on a Super Rod.
Thinking to perhaps make another run for it, Nate found he couldn't, as he couldn't draw his eyes away from Ghetsis and N. Like a helpless moth unable to leave a flame despite knowing it would burn its wings if he stayed too long… but more than that, he couldn't bear the thought of leaving N, of leaving Zekrom, to whatever terrible fate was unfolding for them. Nate turned to look at the dark passageway out of the cavern. Shaking, sobs wracking his body again, he screamed, "Reshiram! HIL! Where the fuck ARE YOU?" We need you! Please! He thought back to Hugh on the ship, to the people he had spurred on to come and fight this battle… We can't fail… I can't fail… I can't fail them…
Ghetsis shook N by the grip he had on his hair, a huge, hungry grin spreading from ear to ear, the same one that made Nate cringe even without being the target. N scrabbled at his hold and kicked all over again, still fighting for all he was worth. "I—I was abandoned in the woods! You found me!" N desperately insisted. "We're not—"
"Save your breath. You made such a moving expression of your determination, made me feel as if all the education I provided you wasn't completely worthless, yet now you want to act like an idiot and prove me wrong," Ghetsis growled. Annunciating his words slowly, as if speaking to a toddler, Ghetsis pressed, "Who abandoned you in the forest, N? Honestly, think. Who could have known you were there? How convenient was it for you to have been left there with a beaten Zorua, surrounded by pokémon that all were afraid of humans! Or are you too stupid and broken to understand me? You FREAK!" He violently shook N again, tapping his chest with the end of his cane. "Do you think I don't know the benefit of people working together with pokémon? After all this time, do you still mock my intelligence that way? Let me spell it out for you, N: I wanted all the pokémon in Unova for MYSELF! Because I wanted that harmony all to MYSELF! Because I AM PERFECTION!"
Nate cowered at the raw, venomous tirade. His gaze was jerked back to Kyurem when he saw the pokémon start to morph and glow, the downed Zekrom, writhing in front of it, starting to disappear, like mist in the wind. He gawked and yelped, "What the fuck are you doing to Zekrom?" Not that he expected Kyurem to answer, but Nate… Nate didn't know what else to do… He knew he just had to keep going, keep trying to fight, no matter what, but… what was there to do…? In the stress and excitement of it all, his mind felt foggy, thinking just… so difficult… He knew he needed to get ahold of Hil somehow… But knowing that didn't objectively help in any way, other than make him internally beg that Hil would realize where they were and come to their rescue…
"L-let me go!" N hollered, his voice breaking under the pressure. He managed to wrench a hand to his pockets and throw a volley of Poké Balls, but just like Nate's, they didn't respond, failing to open. N seemed to pause at that realization before he started fighting again. Yet, despite his best efforts, despite the fact Ghetsis' right arm shook under the strain it took to suspend N slightly from the ground as he had, N could not wrench himself free. "N-now! What did you do to Zekrom? What have you done, Ghetsis?"
"Oh, N," Ghetsis crooned, "I wouldn't dream of ever letting you go again… Because I want to see the look in your eyes, right now!" He slammed the blunt end of the cane against N's chest, knocking the air from his lungs. "How does it feel, N? Knowing that you are completely helpless to save the region that you so claimed to have loved? Knowing that you will be responsible for their demise, for ruining so many lives?!"
"Shut up!" Nate roared. Or at least, that's what he had intended it to be… It came out rather pathetically, but he persevered. "You don't get to act like it's his fault that you're a fucking monster!"
"Me, the monster?" Ghetsis cruelly laughed as Kyurem finished absorbing Zekrom behind him. The Beast of Black Ice stood to its full height behind him and stretched its jaw, roaring another paralyzing sound, as its body shifted. It traded the dull grays of its skin for a cool, clean black like Zekrom's, growing taller, its features more pronounced. Those stubby wings extended to full, black, leathery wings and its tail filled out with Zekrom's conical turbine. Ghetsis dragged N back and jabbed his cane in Kyurem's direction. "This wouldn't have been possible without N! And, oh, N?"
N froze in his grasp, trembling and panting for breath. His fighting had finally taken its toll on him, tiring himself out, and he apprehensively swallowed before looking at Ghetsis fearfully. "Y-yes…?"
"Had you simply gone through with my plans, had you simply listened to me…" Ghetsis growled and broke into more screaming, "I am PERFECTION! And you could have been perfect, TOO! You were going to make Unova PERFECT! But no! You had to SELFISHLY go and destroy my ENTIRE LIFE'S WORK! Unova could have—"
"Leave him alone, Ghetsis!" Nate cried as he saw Ghetsis rear back that cane in his left hand, but his pleas fell on deaf ears as Ghetsis launched the blunt end of it forward, right into N's left eye. Immediately, N howled in pain and fell completely still, and blood flew across the cane and Ghetsis' face, as if something had burst. Nate gagged and looked down, clamping his hands over the back of his neck. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. Where are you, Hil? Where are you?!
"—REMAINED BEAUTIFUL!" Ghetsis finished. After striking N, it seemed that had taken all the energy he had. His right hand finally gave out and he dropped N like a sack of potatoes, clutching that bloody cane tightly in his left as he leaned far on it. Gasping for breath, Ghetsis croaked, "It could… we could… it could have all been so beautiful…"
Nate sank to his knees, wishing he could drown out the sound of N's yelps and cries of pain. Where are you, Hil…? Reshiram…? Why…? Did you abandon us again…? Nate put his head in his hands and just… sobbed again. He didn't care that it was showing weakness anymore. He didn't care that he wasn't being their beacon of hope anymore. He just wanted it all to stop… He just wanted Ghetsis to stop… He wanted to get off this ride…
Still panting tiredly, Ghetsis staggered forward and kicked N lightly in the side. He moaned in pain, but made no effort to fight what, for all he knew, was another vicious attack. "Now, N, even if you don't die today at my hand," Ghetsis huffed, "you will forever bare the scar that marks you as mine… an eye… for an eye, as they say…" Ghetsis shakily raised his exhausted, right hand to gesture toward the eyepiece over his right eye.
N raised a hand slowly toward Kyurem, his entire body convulsing in the wake of his agonized writhing. "Zek… rom… I know you're… in there… You… must… f-fight! Pl… please…"
"Pathetic," Ghetsis sneered. With that, he hobbled away from N and glowered at Nate. "Now, where were we, Nathan?" he chuckled darkly, his crimson left eye glinting cruelly in the dim lights of the cavern. "Hm, yes, I believe I know… Kyurem, GLACIATE!"
Nate made no move to look at or dodge the attack this time.
What was the point in delaying the inevitable?
He drew in a long breath. Just play along and it'll all be over soon…
So, Im gonna be honest I can recognize that N arriving to face Ghetsis alone may be sorta confusing when Zekrom was reacting to Reshiram heading toward the Frigate, but that will be explained in due time - I just couldnt find a way to hint at an explanation in this chapter, so just. Keep in mind I know it seems like there's a slight plot hole there but it'll be covered